Peels of 12 Lemon (of 3/4 Lemon)
16 oz Sugar (1 oz)
16 oz Lemon Juice (1 oz)
750 mL Jamaican Rum (1 1/4 oz Plantation Xaymaca + 1/4 oz Smith & Cross)
750 mL Cognac (1 1/2 oz Courvoisier VS)
750 mL Madeira (1 1/2 oz Blandy's 5 Year Verdelho)
Make an oleosaccharum with the lemon peels and sugar (2+ hr). Dissolve the sugar in the lemon juice, add the rest of the ingredients, strain to remove the peels, and chill with ice.
On the morning of the Fourth, I read David Wondrich's treatise on the
Quiet Fourth of July in the
DailyBeast about how he usually throws a big party replete with a punch bowl and other traditions; however, this year, the festivities would be scaled back greatly due to his regard for his guests' and his safety. While we have never thrown an Independence Day party before, I have been tasked with producing a
punch for them, and if I was not working that day, I was among friends. This year, it would just be Andrea and myself, and we planned a dinner out on our second floor deck. For a final drink of the night, I plotted out a scaled down number from Wondrich's
Punch Book. The Quoit Club Punch created perhaps two centuries ago in Richmond, Virginia, seemed rather delightful with Jamaican rum, brandy, and Madeira, so I prepared the oleosaccharum before I began cooking. Wondrich worked off of an old description of the ingredients and estimated rather well what the recipe could have been.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jWMB7iTMgo9hrxkA0_qLaF6_s14SLTY31sPUUgJHllblkHxQgZV2Gc4UWCrU_NrvE8c4yw-5ptKoDrmDuitlO29AfPVQKijtkXjBQj1rsJh9ZXbY5CGbFUfnNYkbtJFOa9Qd3VE70RuE/s320/quoitclubpunch5551.jpg)
The Quoit Club rejoiced the senses with rum funk and bright lemon bouquet. Next, lemon, grape, and caramel notes raised a toast on the sip, and the swallow continued on with the funky rum, lemon peel, and grape complexity from the Cognac and Madeira. Overall, it reminded me of a more Colonial and less exotic
West Indies Punch.